These Walls Are A Rotting Corpse: 13 Haunted House Movies To Binge

Widely considered the pinnacle of cinematic ghost stories, Robert Wise's incomparable adaptation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House masterfully blends the lines between paranormal menace and decaying human psychosis.

What is a haunting without tormented spirits and unfinished business? Erlingur Thoroddsen's Rift is a mesmerizing meditation on the complex manifestations of lingering baggage, backed by the dramatic otherworldliness of rural Iceland. A modern classic at the intersection of queer horror, this supernatural thriller brilliantly weaves surrealist scares with an intimate portrayal of a fractured gay relationship.

An experimental horror/comedy with peppered musical elements, 1977's definitive cult classic House from director and producer Nobuhiko Obayashi is a vivid fever dream with enduring imagery that continues to bleed into numerous facets of pop culture (most recently Panic At The Disco's Viva Las Vengeance). House places old-world Japanese superstitions in the hands of famed monster makers, Toho Studios, bringing this psychedelic haunting to life among man-eating pianos, ghoulish banshee heads, and witches with a nasty craving for youth.

While plenty is documented on the legacy of William Friedkin's magnum opus, The Exorcist, less is said on the wave of "exorsploitation" knock-offs in the aftermath, including Alberto De Martino's The Antichrist. With striking stylization that could rival a Renaissance fresco, grandiose centerpieces such as levitating portrait galleries and confrontations in the Roman Colosseum, and even some satanic goat rimming (every party needs it), this underrated gem takes wonderfully bold swings well beyond its inspired material.

Not all hauntings deal with the paranormal dead, sometimes mortals run afoul of sadistic spellcasters who incite widespread terror for simple thrills. Mohamed Shebl's Al Ta'weeza (The Talisman) finds a tight-knit Egyptian family plagued by an evil Warlock after refusing to sell the supernatural being their home. Unleashing a non-traditional arsenal of chicken murder, domestic destruction and drag queens twirling to Divine's You Think You're A Man, the Talisman proves just how dramatic folks can become when good real estate hangs in the balance.

The perfect storm of signature gallows humor, campy performances, and groundbreaking effects solidified Sam Raimi's Evil Dead as synonymous with horror, defining a new era of fright at the cross-section of comedy and gore. Released in Italy as La Casa, producer Joe D'Amato sought to capitalize on the success of the American film by fast-tracking a slew of unofficial sequels such as Ghosthouse, Beyond Darkness, and the Linda Blair and David Hasslehoff-led Witchery, each bringing its own delicious euro-centric shlock to the loosely extended Kandarian demon universe.

The Soviet Union's first horror movie from Konstantin Yershov, Georgi Kropachyov and Aleksandr Ptushko, Viy's nightmarish whimsy plays with robust Russian folklore, which shares similar dark sensibilities to that of The Brothers Grim. The film's dazzling visual palette is a testament to Ptushko's mastery of the animated arts and knack for fantasy storytelling, captivating viewers in a Night On Bald Mountain-like web of witches, demons, and impressionable seminary students.

Coined as the "Japanese Evil Dead," Bloody Muscle Body Builder In Hell is an infamous eight-millimeter love letter to the famed Raimi property, reportedly lost for a number of years until its release in the early 2010s. This gooey and goopy romp invokes the true spirit of independent filmmaking, boasting a predominantly one-man crew in writer and director Shinichi Fukazawa while pulling off hilarious hijinks and fantastic effects, all with minimal resources beyond its wealth in ambition.

In true William Castle style, Bhoot director Ram Gopal Varma states at the onset of his critically acclaimed Indian horror/thriller "This film of mine is just an attempt to scare you and it in no way reflects my belief in the supernatural.". With the audience now properly tantalized, Varma conjures up major metropolitan scares of a haunted luxury high-rise in a stark break from the old dark house trope, breathing fresh life into these rotting walls.

Steeped in long-standing Chinese superstitions, this ghostly take on Hong Kong action is a bombastic revenge ride that feels spiritually akin to titles like Kill Bill or Mr. Vampire. When Chun Sing sets out to take down the nefarious criminal kingpin who murdered his father, he must band together with the resurrected dead and a house full of prostitutes in order to survive.

One of the last truly groundbreaking haunted house flicks from pre-Conjuring times, Alejandro Amenábar's The Others reinvigorates the genre by flipping the script and revealing its protagonists as the lost spectral entities themselves. Harkening back to classics like The Haunting or House On Haunted Hill, The Others weaves a dark ambiance and tastefully shocking scares with phenomenal performances from Nicole Kidman, Fionnula Flanagan, Christopher Eccleston, and more.

A cult classic in the grand pantheon of Mexican horror, Vacation of Terror (and its more popular sequel/remake) follows a wealthy family tormented by the whims of a doll possessed by the soul of a witch. Though the film was initially met with a lukewarm reception, it has since gained beloved cult status among other Latin cinema releases, such as the Santo franchise.

From the king of cinema gimmickry, William Castle, 13 Ghosts remains immortalized at the forefront of the haunted house subgenre and pioneers the interactive narrative art space. Castle's famed filmography implemented dynamic audience ambush and marketing fads. This particular film elevates snappy tongue-in-cheek dialogue with the showmanship of "Ghost Viewer" goggles, allowing the audience to perceive spectral entities throughout the runtime.